The term "Jasper Project" refers to a seven-year effort at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, by the Cognition and Technology Group, a component of the Learning Technology Center, under the co-direction of Drs. John D. Bransford and Susan Goldman, with collaboration by Dr. Robert D. Sherwood and a team of nearly 80 people. The goal of the project was to produce materials in mathematics education that would involve the use of technology, together with a constructivist philosophy of learning, and a collaborative approach to problem solving by the students. In short, active learning with technology as a key element characterizes the Jasper Project.

In order to improve mathematics education for grades five and above, researchers in the Jasper Project produced a video series oriented toward the solving of math problems called "The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury." Each video in the series of 12 videos presented a real-life narrative starring Jasper followed by math problems for the children to solve using clues drawn from the narratives. Although I did not learn what materials supplemented the videos, I assume that print materials were also developed as part of the project. Based on the date of Dr. Sherwood's article (Sherwood, R. as part of The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. (1992). The Jasper experiment: An exploration of issues in learning and instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 40, 65-80), I assume that the video series was either well along in development or completed by that date.

According to information from Vanderbilt University on the Nashville "Schools for thought" program, which uses the Jasper materials, "The 1994-95 school year was the second year of SFT in Nashville. In the first year (1993-94) SFT was implemented in two sixth grade pilot classes. SFT was implemented in 8 classes located in four middle schools (4 sixth grade classrooms and 4 seventh grade classrooms) during 1994-95. Most of the schools were located in the inner-city and all had past records of low student achievement."(http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/projects/funded/sft/
overview/technology.html)

The Schools for Thought (SFT) project is a further outgrowth of the Jasper Project work, now building on three components: "Fostering Communities of Learners, an approach to literacy, science, and social studies developed at the University of California Berkeley; Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environment (CSILE), a student-generated communal data base that supports knowledge building, developed at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education; and The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury, a mathematics problem solving series developed at Vanderbilt's Learning Technology Center." (http://edge.net/~baxter/pressrelease.html) Therefore, actual piloting of "The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury" in the schools preceded these SFT pilot dates, probably over many years. All three components were referred to in this press release as "rigorously tested."

Recently, (although I will not be able to determine the exact year of the award by Sunday at midnight, information is available at (615) 322-8407 on the alliance for "Schools for Thought"), the Nashville Public Schools won a $5.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, to be supplemented by other awards from the Nashville Public Schools, Peabody College at Vanderbilt, and Vanderbilt University totaling $40 million. With this funding, 94 classrooms will be equipped to participate in the Schools for Thought technology-based approach, including use of "The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury."

The philosophy behind the Jasper Project can be understood as "constructivism," which "posits that children actually invent their ideas. They assimilate new information to simple, pre-existing notions, and modify their understanding in light of new data. In the process, their ideas gain in complexity and power, and with appropriate support children develop critical insight into how they think and what they know about the world as their understanding increases in depth and complexity" (Strommen and Lincoln, 1992). Guided play is a component of this approach, which "involves the consideration of novel combinations of ideas, and the hypothetical outcomes of imagined situations and events" (Strommen and Lincoln, 1992).

With the videos about Jasper, children follow chronological stories into which specific facts and relationships are embedded. They then solve real-world problems (e.g. Will Jasper be able to get home before running out of gas?), using the facts, reasoning about them, and performing arithmetic operations to arrive at the answer.

The children are also urged to work collaboratively. According to Strommen and Lincoln (1992), "The advantages of this collective effort are that children are able to reflect on and elaborate not just their own ideas, but those of their peers as well. Children come to view their peers not as competitors but as resources. Mutual tutoring, a sense of shared progress and shared goals, and a feeling of teamwork are the natural outcomes of cooperative problem-solving, and these processes have been shown to produce substantial advances in learning."

As a refugee from the pre-TV era, I believe that approaches to learning such as the constructivist and collaborative approaches are very valuable today, but primarily because our students have been trained to passivity. Few children growing up on farms needed to be trained in school to collaborate in solving problems, and they constructed problem-solving strategies around their real-world problems. Strommen and Lincoln (1992) say that constructivist learning allows children to do more "than simply absorbing ideas spoken at them by teachers, or somehow internalizing them through endless, repeated rote practice." I cannot recall ever being mentally passive as a student in a traditional classroom. I listened to what the teacher said, tried to relate what was being said to what I already knew, imagined examples of what was being talked about, objected mentally, and so forth. Outside of class I read a great deal and engaged in fantasy-based play, both alone and with friends.

I disagree with Strommen and Lincoln's implication that students today are actively engaged in the world, self-directed and goal-oriented and that school is a confining, authoritarian environment that thwarts these natural tendencies. I see students who are alienated all right, but not engaged or self-directed, rather passive and adrift. Consumption, television, and the absence of adult models do not seem to be developing people with strong problem-solving skills. If new approaches will help to overcome these deficits, I want to adopt them. I just do not agree that traditional education was either flawed or passive for a prior generation that read books, lived in strong communities, and solved "real-life problems" in the real world.

Sherwood, R. as part of The Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. (1992). The Jasper experiment: An exploration of issues in learning and instructional design. Educational Technology Research and Development, 40, 65-80).

Online

"Nashville Public Schools Win $5.1 Million Award for Schools for Thought'." Press release. http://edge.net/~baxter/pressrelease.html (Accessed July 11, 1998.)

Strommen, E. F. and Lincoln, B. (1992) Constructivism, technology, and the future of classroom learning. LiveText. Learning Technologies at Teachers College, Columbia University. http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/k12/livetext/docs/construct.html (Accessed July 11, 1998.)

Peabody College, Vanderbilt University. "Schools for Thought." (http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/projects/funded/sft/overview/technology.html). (Accessed July 11, 1998.)